A Touch of Magic, a Hint of Fear
by Ryuu-Xana
Summary: A new exhibit is coming to the Museum of Natural History. It's only temporary, thank God. But boy, does it wreak havoc while it is there or what! I am telling you, it may burn down the whole of New York. Genies are never good to have. Rest inside.


A new exhibit is coming to the Museum of Natural History. It's only temporary, all thanks be to God. But boy, does it wreak havoc while it is there or what! I am telling you, it may burn down the whole of New York. Genies are never good to have. But what kind of chaos does it wreak? I would love to report that this genie is a friendly, loving genie, but there is more than just what is on the surface. It's good that there is an anime convention in a few days...

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Chapter 1: This Museum does what????

It was almost night and almost time for the Museum of Natural History to start waking up. Larry Daily was running late. He had heard that a new exhibit was coming in the next day. He had to alert everyone that they would have a new friend or friends.

He himself was currently held up at his house. His niece was staying with him for a while since her mom was busy touring the world. Ever since her art had started selling, she had turned into a completely different person.

"Hurry up, Chloe!" Larry called up the stairs to his niece. "It's almost time for me to be at the museum!"

"Just let me fix my make-up and I'll be right down!"

"Girls," he muttered. "They always take too long."

When she finally came down the stairs, he said to her, "You are definitely my sister's daughter. She used to do the exact same thing to me when we were in high school."

They both laughed.

"So, why do I have to come with you to the museum?" asked Chloe as they walked to Larry's car. "I'll be fine here. I am 17 now. And besides, the house needs cleaning."

"Boring, boring, boring," laughed Larry as he and Chloe got into his car. "Besides, this isn't an ordinary museum. You're going to love it."

Chloe looked around the car, searching for something to occupy herself with during the night. It wasn't as if she didn't like museums but she would get bored with nothing to do from the time she finished looking through the museum to the time it opened again the next morning. "Oh!" she gasped, picking up a little Native American figurine she gave him when she was fourteen. "You still have it!"

Larry glanced at the figurine in her hand in her hand and then turned his eyes back to the road, a smile on his face. "Of course I did. I wouldn't get rid of it. You gave it to me."

Chloe smiled. "But I thought you would have lost it with all of your moving."

He chuckled. "Never." He looked at her, a mischievous gleam in his eye. "Be sure to bring her in with you, okay?"

Chloe looked over at her uncle like he was crazy but decided to play along anyway. "Okay…Sure." She examined the figurine in her hand and then looked back at her uncle. She was sure he was crazy.

The sound of a car door being opened brought her back from her thoughts. She got out of her car, figurine in hand, and followed her uncle toward the museum. "So why exactly do you think I'm going to love this place so much? I mean, it's just a museum. Don't get me wrong, I do love learning about history. But why is this museum so different from all the others?" she asked, stopping on the stairs, staring at her uncle's back.

Larry turned around. "You'll see. Just have to wait for the sun to set."

"Why?" She was getting worried about her uncle's sanity. Maybe this night guard job was too much stress on him, being awake all night, and maybe he was beginning to see things.

"You'll see," he said as he turned around and walked inside.

Chloe shook her brown hair and followed her uncle inside. When she entered she saw a gigantic dinosaur skeleton looming before her. "Cool! T-Rex!"

"I knew you'd love it. And believe me, it's even better once the sun goes down."

There, he had said it again: "Once the sun goes down." She looked at him. "What do you mean, Uncle Larry?"

He shook his head, that mischievous gleam still in his eye. "Just go look around the exhibits. When you get back here, see if you can spot if anything has changed."

Chloe just went along with it. She visited the animal exhibits first, from the savannah to the oceans. She loved looking at penguins.

Then she stopped by the Hall of Miniatures. She looked at her figurine and then at the miniature figures of the Cowboys and the Romans. "Curious," she muttered, looking at a cowboy who had a Roman in the stockades. "How did that happen?" She looked at her figurine and giggled. "What a trio they would be together," she muttered, setting her figurine down behind the Roman and the Cowboy.

Next, she walked up the stairs, passed the Easter Island Statue; she looked at Attila the Hun, examined the cavemen, and walked around the whole museum until she got the Egyptian Exhibit. She got caught up in staring at the tablet. It was so mesmerizing. Suddenly a flash of white light blinded the girl and she stumbled out of the exhibit, looking for her uncle.

When Chloe got back to the lobby she didn't see her uncle. In fact it seemed like something really big was missing but she couldn't put her finger on it. Suddenly, everything began to shake as if an earthquake had hit. Chloe found herself stumbling toward the front desk to regain her balance. That was when the giant T-Rex came stomping into the room, chasing a little remote-control hummer that had a bone tied to the back of it.

Chloe rubbed her eyes, thinking that maybe, possibly, she was seeing things. She opened her eyes and came face-to-giant-dinosaur-muzzle with the T-Rex. It sniffed her and she just about screamed.

"Uncle Larry!" she shouted, confused out of her mind and scared to death to be this close to a living dinosaur skeleton.

Larry came bounding into the room, Ahkmanrah following behind him. "Rexxy, leave her alone. Be a good T-Rex."

Rexxy sniffed Chloe once more and turned, walking away, finding something else to occupy himself with.

"What in the world is going on?" asked an exasperated Chloe.

"Well," started Ahkmanrah, walking over to stand next to Chloe. "My golden tablet—"

"Oh, right. The one that blinded me."

"Well, it's cursed. It makes this whole museum come to life at night."

"How can you call it cursed, Ahk?" asked a voice down near Chloe's feet.

"It's because of your tablet that we get to experience life at night." The voice, again at her feet, was another voice from the first.

"Chloe!" came an excited gasp. She felt something tugging on her pant leg.

Ahkmanrah knelt down and picked up three figures: A Cowboy, A Roman, and a Native American.

"Sahkyo!" exclaimed Chloe. "It affects you too?"

Sahkyo looked herself up and down and at her arms. "Yeah, I guess it does," she said smiling back at Chloe.

"This is my niece, Chloe," Larry said, introducing her to the figures before her. "Chloe, the is Jedidiah," he pointed to the Cowboy who waved, "Octavius," he pointed to the Roman General who bowed, "the T-Rex was Rexxy, and this is Ahkmanrah."

"So, why did you bring Sahkyo here? I mean, it's cool and all that she's alive, but why?"

"I wanted to see if it was just museum artifacts that came to life or if it was everything. So I thought why not? And it worked. And now Jed and Octavius are watching out for her because the Mayans won't accept her. Besides, Octavius and Jedidiah need a project to bring them closer, so why not taking care of her?"

Chloe looked at him in disbelief. "You're using my figure as a project?"

"Oh, that reminds me. Ahk, can you round everybody up here because I have an announcement to make."

Fifteen minutes later all the human exhibits plus Dexter were gathered into the Lobby.

"What's the announcement, Gigantor?" asked Jed.

"We're having a new exhibit installed tomorrow. Apparently there was a really old lamp found on a dig in the Middle East and it's being shown here."

"A lamp?" asked Chloe, looking around at everything and everyone that came to life at night. "Like from Aladdin?" she asked, looking doubtful, hoping she was wrong. "Like a genie's lamp?"

Larry got a thoughtful look on his face. "Well, hopefully it's a good genie."

Jed gave them both a weird look. "Don't the lamp have to be rubbed to get the genie out?" he asked.

"Oh. Yeah." Chloe felt dumb. She really should have known that. "It's just with the museum coming to life at night I don't know if the same rules apply here as they do in the desert. I mean, look at you two for example," she said looking at Jed and Octavius. "Romans and Cowboys together?"

They both turned away, faces red.

Chloe looked at her uncle, confused. He just shrugged, not having any idea either.

Chloe cleared her throat. "I didn't mean 'together' as in dating but together in time. Rome was like 2000 years or so before the Brits invaded America. And then you also have the Mayans in the Diorama Room and Sahkyo standing next to you."

Everybody looked at each other and back at Chloe. Even Teddy and Ahkmanrah were listening to her.

"So what if the regular rules don't apply here? What if the genie can up and roam around the museum?"

"What if somebody accidently says that they wish something and just because the genie hears the wish, he grants it?" asked Octavius quietly.

"Oi, this could really ugly really quick-like," agreed Jed.

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Hope you liked it. It will eventually become Oct/Jed.


End file.
